


A Jolly Good Breakfast In Bed

by MichellesPenScratchz



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Breakfast in Bed, Cutesy, Domestic Fluff, Feelings, Fluff, M/M, Made For Each Other, Post-Borderlands 3 (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25531552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MichellesPenScratchz/pseuds/MichellesPenScratchz
Summary: Days after the events of Love, Guns and Tentacles, Wainwright awakens one morning at the Jakobs Estate to Hammerlock bringing him breakfast in bed. The renowned game hunter's unconventional culinary habits only bring them closer together.
Relationships: Sir Hammerlock/Wainwright Jakobs
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	A Jolly Good Breakfast In Bed

“Why, Alistair, after all we’ve been through, I reckoned there weren’t no way you could surprise me. And here you are, just provin’ me wrong as a sundial on its side in a storm,” Wainwright declared, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and blinking a few times from underneath the duvet covers.

Alistair Hammerlock stood at the foot of the grandly carved, intricate wooden bed frame, overlooking the king size mattress he and his newlywed husband shared at Jakobs Manor. Over his simple dressing gown, he wore a chef’s apron. In his hands was a tray, a bell-shaped covering on top.

“If breakfast in bed comes as a greater shock to you than the…rather unconventional happenstances of our wedding, then I daresay our adventures have only yet begun, my dear Winny,” proclaimed Hammerlock. He shuffled around to the side of the bed where he himself had been laying a few hours prior, the covers still drawn back from his departure to reveal the linen sheets underneath. There he placed the bronze tray.

Wainwright turned on his side, careful not to overturn the tray beside him. He knew Alistair meant well by the comment, but frankly he’d had his fill of adventures for the time-being. First, the moment those Calypso deviants had killed Montgomery and threatened the very Jakobs’ family legacy. Then, the destination wedding-turned-horror on Xylourgos. It was fair to say that life had been a tad noisier than he was accustomed to, here lately. But as soon as he and Alistair had returned home a few days ago, it had been marital bliss. Of course he’d always accepted Alistair’s flair for the exotic (he wouldn’t be the man Wainwright fell for otherwise) but after every storm there’s got to come a calm.

Still, breakfast in bed was as sweet a gesture as his life partner had ever pampered him with. He glanced out the window. The morning light seemed to peek coyly through those timeless taffeta curtains Maggie Jakobs had once valued so. (May his mother rest in peace.) It wasn’t that late by the looks of it, and yet Alistair had already risen, gone down to the kitchen, shooed out the staff, and made breakfast for the two of them himself. In spite of all their past turmoils, Wainwright wondered how he had wound up so lucky.

Alistair removed the covering so he could display the meal he had prepared, as proud as though it were one of his hunting trophies. “I trust you’ll find everything most satisfactory,” he said, waving his prosthetic hand over the two identical china plates, crystal glasses, and teacups. The plates sported eggs and toast. The glasses were full of orange juice, and the teacups were full of an herbal tea.

Wainwright inhaled deeply of the aroma carried off the tray by the burst of steam.. “I’m right sure I—” he started, then raised an eyebrow and inhaled the scent again. It wasn’t a bad smell, per se, just…unfamiliar. Foreign. _Exotic_ , even. His eyesight may be going, but his nose missed nigh on to nothing. He was adept at catching those subtle notes in the whiskey he drank whilst rocking on the porch, or in the signature Jakobs gunpowder simmering in oak barrels in the cellar below. He could identify just about any spice or flavor the family chef could serve up to him…but with his nostrils now poised above Alistair’s creation, he found himself at a loss.

“Say, Alistair…you plum outdid yourself here,” he said. “What’s this you’ve put together for us, now?”

Alistair beamed. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “You see, I simply couldn’t abide plain old OJ to be delivered on a platter to my slumbering hubby, now could I? No, I determined that this fruity beverage required something of a kick in the pants, as it were. And that is why I took the liberty of adding shots of both maple syrup and your favorite oak brandy to the citrusy liquid here before you.” He reached into the pocket of his apron and produced a shotgun shell casing. “And by ‘shot’ I do of course mean the additives were poured out of an expended shell casing. Waste not want not, I say.”

With that, Wainwright’s mental facilities were able to puzzle out the mingled scents of orange, maple syrup, brandy, and…yes, that was cordite. “Well…nobody in their right mind would ever call this take of yours on orange juice ‘plain,’” he remarked. “Bold. One might even say _piquant._ But not plain for sure.” Leave it to Alistair to turn something as simple as orange juice into an expedition. Albeit, an expedition for the olfactory senses and tastebuds.

“For sure,” Alistair echoed. “And as for the tea,” he went on, lifting his own teacup as if to make a toast, one hand perched behind his back with poise. “Simply nothing would do but an infuser filled generously with the flower petals of the elusive Pedanius cactus, which only grow in the most arid regions of Gehenna. The health benefits are beyond question, yet the taste itself leaves something to be desired. And so I have augmented it with the honey from a Bumblejackal hive…the Bumblejackal being a particularly large and deadly species of bee native to the planet Artemis. Quite territorial…but if I were guarding something half as delectable as Bumblejackal honey, I might likewise be rather territorial myself.” Having said this, he took a modest sip.

Wainwright didn’t fail to catch Alistair’s fingers trembling as they held the teacup to his lips. He saw plain as the handlebar mustache on his husband’s face he was full of excitement and nostalgia, recalling the close shaves he’d clearly had on Gehenna and Artemis for which these ingredients were a souvenir. Still, Wainwright knew if he pried, the tea would be cold before Alistair’s yarns were well and truly spun.

“I reckon that’s a story for another time,” he said. “I don’t know that I can handle that much excitement before I’m even fully awake.”

He remembered the doubts that had prodded at his heart just before the wedding. They had been easy to chalk up to pre-marital jitters…especially when compared to the downright terror he had experienced in Eleanor Olmstead’s clutches. But now, as he watched Alistair try to contain his zeal while he reminisced of where these ingredients came from, Wainwright recalled why he had begun to hesitate. Alistair was unlike any other man he’d ever met. His husband’s life had been a tapestry of danger and excitement, and Wainwright couldn’t help but wonder why a renowned expeditioner and game hunter would ever have chosen to settle down with someone as far removed from that lifestyle as himself. Where Alistair sought out adventure, Wainwright sought out the simple comforts of home.

The toast on the plate looked simplistically comfortable enough, and Wainwright did find himself a mite peckish. While Alistair savored the taste of his past triumphs as represented by his tea, Wainwright reached for the toast, crisped to perfection and topped with a rich purple jam.

“Ah yes, the toast—I was just coming to that, incidentally,” Alistair continued. “I searched no further than the pantry for the bread itself, but the jam originated from the berries of a highly poisonous plant on Dionysus, which only a blessed few shamans in the six galaxies know how to extract and process successfully without succumbing to a swift and throat-grasping death. Fear not, Winny, I’ve already sampled the jam myself and found it to be quite non-toxic and exceptionally tangy.”

“Oh, Alistair, you shouldn’t have,” Wainwright said with only a faint touch of sarcasm, and put the toast back on the plate.

“Think nothing of it—a mere trifle,” Alistair responded, unfazed. “And as for the eggs, poached in the fashion taught to me by—”

“Pray, don’t tell me; do let me guess,” Wainwright cut him off. “By the high priest of the Voodoo Rooster Deity who perches atop the Poultry Shrine on the Sacred Chicken Ranch of Junpai-7?”

“Er…no, of course not,” Alistair said. “Junpai-7 is almost entirely aquatic, and quite tumultuous in nature. I’d be most impressed to see where a Voodoo Rooster Deity would even establish a Sacred Chicken Ranch there.”

“I was speaking hyperbolically, Alistair.” Wainwright rolled onto his back, head meeting the pillow and eyes gawking straight up at the ceiling.

“…I say, Winny. Is aught amiss?” Alistair asked. “Oh dear. I overdid the ‘customization’ aspect of your breakfast, didn’t I?”

Wainwright sighed long and low. “I’m sorry, my darlin’,” he said. “I’m sure everything you whipped up is divine.”

Alistair tilted his head quizzically. “But?”

“But you ought to know by now better than anyone. I’m just a simple man, pranked by fate into bearin’ the Jakobs name,” Wainwright said. “It’s only been days that we’ve been home from that ordeal on Xylourgos, and already you’re turning breakfast into your next adventure? I just can’t help fretting sometimes that you’ll end up figuring out you put a ring on a finger that’s attached to a boring old fool, too dull for your palate. Then your expeditions will start again, and we’ll be lucky to steal a moment during the holidays anymore.”

Alistair’s teacup gave a little _cling_ as it was placed cautiously but firmly on the platter. “Wainwright Jakobs, I am, to put it bluntly, nothing short of affronted,” Alistair declared. “How _ever_ could you think that, Sir?”

He deftly rang the bell to signal the Jakobs Estate help, then picked up the tray and walked it to the door.

“Alistair, what are you doing?” Wainwright called. “There’s no need to—”

The door opened, and a housekeeper peered in.

“I commend your promptness, Madam,” Alistair praised her. “Would you kindly take this back down to the kitchen, discard one of the dishes, and return it instead with my husband’s usual? That would be buttered biscuits, sausage gravy, a side of bacon just on the brink of too crispy while not exceeding too crispy, and black coffee with three sugar cubes on the side, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Right away, Mr. Hammerlock,” she twanged in that Edenian accent, and turned away with the tray in hand.

“Oh! One more thing, if you please,” Alistair hailed her before she left. He claimed one of the orange juice glasses. “I’ll take this.”

Wainwright raised an eyebrow at this exchange. Orange juice in hand, Alistair closed the door behind him and returned to the side of the bed.

“Well, I’ll be a saurian’s uncle,” Wainwright marveled. “You remembered. The sugar cubes, even.”

“Wainwright,” Alistair said. “I have been a game hunter for the better part of my days, so you must believe what I am about to tell you: a grand majority of the hunt is actually frightfully dull, you see.”

This took Wainwright aback. “No.”

“Oh, yes,” Alistair insisted. “The hours of preparation. The waiting game before your quarry even deigns to appear. Why, to say nothing of the exorbitant time out of action to heal, on those occasions your pursuit doesn’t go quite as planned.” He examined his prosthetic arm briefly, then poised it behind his back.

Wainwright perused his mental catalogue of all the spectacular stories Alistair had ever shared of his hunting exploits. True, there had always been passing mentions of checking weapons, baiting traps, and searching in vain for day-old tracks. But Alistair had never dwelt on that part of his lifestyle for long.

“To be sure, the reward is well worth it,” Alistair continued. “The moment when you meet the great forces of Nature in all Her most unadulterated fury and stand victorious—there’s nothing quite like it.” He offered up the orange juice, the beverage hinting at the notes of whiskey like a bawdy secret. “But I’m certain you understand. I urge you to consider that first sip you take from a freshly opened barrel of whiskey.”

Wainwright _hmmmed_ wistfully at the thought, taking the glass. “When you crack that barrel open, and the harmonious scent of oak and malt just makes itself right at home in your nose,” he reminisced, even feeling bold enough now to try the whiskey-laced orange juice. It wasn’t half bad. “And you say to yourself, ‘This moment is what the last five years of barrel aging have been all about,’” he added.

“Precisely!” Alistair beamed. “The perfect glass of whiskey could never exist without that lengthy aging process. Just like the perfect trophy could never find a home on my wall without the preparation and boundless patience that comes before.”

He removed his chef’s apron, hung it from a bedpost, and climbed back under the duvet covers next to Wainwright. “My hubby, a boring old fool? Utter hogwash! Why, every moment with you is simply alight with anticipation for what may come next.” Alistair smiled.

Wainwright’s fingers curled around Alistar’s underneath the sheets. “Sir Hammerlock? I feel quite the same way, you silver-tongued larcenist of my heart,” he said in a teasing manor.

Their kiss was a lazy morning in bed and a cracking dawn in hot pursuit of the day’s challenges ahead, both melded into a harmony that defied explanation with its very existence.

When they broke, Alistair fondly perched his thumb and forefinger under Wainwright’s chin. He commended a little habit he had developed of molding that little tuft of hair under Wainwright’s lip into an angular point with his thump tip. “Our breakfast should be back in short order,” he said. “I trust you’ll find your biscuits, gravy and bacon to your liking. But should you be compelled to try my somewhat unconventional eggs and toast, my plate will be entirely at your disposal.”

Wainwright leaned fully against him. “And if you’re hankerin’ for a bite of down-home comfort food, you know where to find my plate,” he replied.

When the dishes returned, the newlywed grooms’ forks played a game of hopscotch: first a bite from one plate, then a sampling from the other. Wainwright had to admit…this made them both taste even better.

**Author's Note:**

> I might have made Hammerlock a bit of a chatterbox in this, but his dialect is just so fun to write! We'll say Wainwright just wasn't too talkative because he just woke up.


End file.
